NSA Grabs Text Messages
Rex Latchford with another DayPage…
We’re only hours away now from Pres. Obama’s announcement about what he’s going to do about the NSA mess. But just this morning the UK’s Guardian newspaper published the latest bombshell about NSA spying. Their article focuses on the GHCQ’s involvements, and UK responses to the Snowden disclosures, and for that we recommend you head on over to their website where you can see the NSA documents for yourself.
For the next few minutes, we’ll concentrate on the US impacts of the disclosure. In short, the new documents released show that the NSA is bulk collecting all text messages. Not just the meta-data, but the content.
What’s often bypassed in lamestream media reporting is the nature of the NSA documents themselves. They’re decorated with lots of graphics to help show just how extensive any particular data-collection program is. The tone of the graphics is boastful, reminiscent of the cowboy US helicopter pilots in the video released to Wikileaks by Chelsea Manning, bragging about the people they were killing, with hoots and cheers as they mowed down a reporter armed only with a camera using dozens of rounds. This should be cause for concern, as it is evidence of an entire culture that despises the legal protections Americans expect, such as their constitutional rights.
The headline is this: The NSA has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to NSA documents. The program, codenamed Dishfire collects “pretty much everything it can” according to GHCQ documents, rather than only storing communications of surveillance targets, as law requires.
The NSA has made extensive use of its vast text message database to extract information on people’s travel plans, contact books, financial transactions and more – including of individuals under no suspicion of illegal activity.
An agency presentation from 2011 – subtitled “SMS Text Messages: A Goldmine to Exploit” – reveals the program collected an average of 194 million text messages a day in April of that year. In addition to storing the messages themselves, a further program known as “Prefer” conducted automated analysis on the untargeted communications.
On average, each day the NSA was able to extract:
• More than 5 million missed-call alerts, for use in contact-chaining analysis (working out someone’s social network from who they contact and when)
• Details of 1.6 million border crossings a day, from network roaming alerts
• More than 110,000 names, from electronic business cards, which also included the ability to extract and save images.
• Over 800,000 financial transactions, either through text-to-text payments or linking credit cards to phone users
The agency was also able to extract geolocation data from more than 76,000 text messages a day, including from “requests by people for route info” and “setting up meetings”. Other travel information was obtained from itinerary texts sent by travel companies, even including cancellations and delays to travel plans.
Are you getting the picture yet?
That’s enough for this DayPage. These days are sad indeed. You can find the rest of the sad lot at DayPage.net, it’s a production of RadioInfoWeb mornings, heard on the Liberty Radio Network, and although it’s Friday, I’ll post another page after Obama’s pronouncements are made. Join me then, for another DayPage.